How can I prevent stress?

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We are all capable of doing too much work, getting stressed, doing things that cause us grief, anxiety and stress – but how can we prevent it?

In this lesson, based on interviews with 250 top achievers, David Hyner – an international speaker, author, broadcaster and researcher on goal setting – Explains how we need to make ‘de-stressing’ an habitual behaviour.

Grant Leboff: David one of the things you talk about a lot of is, preventing stress. So what are some of the techniques people can use to prevent getting stressed?

David Hyner: Great question. There are simple things that people can do. For example, a 21 day habitual behaviour pattern. Now Hermann Ebbinghaus was a psychiatrist who studied habitual behaviour, he took Pavlov’s theory to the next level and he proved that if you do something for 21 consecutive days it forms the foundation of a habit. So instead of us forming the foundation of doing too much work, getting stressed, doing things that cause us grief, anxiety and stress, why don’t we actually set in our diary an immovable amount of time – even if it’s only five minutes a day Grant – that would enable us to feel better? So how about doing things for 21 days, one thing a day. It could be something as simple as get a massage. By your partner or some flowers or a cigar he is a he. It could be something as simple as take a dog a walk, if you haven’t got a dog steal a dog! Take some kids to the cinema. If you haven’t got any kids, steal I kids! – Don’t steal kids-! But it could be such simple things; cook a meal, go out for a meal, book a holiday watch some comedy, have a laugh. Laughter is one of the biggest de-stressors known to man and woman. So do something every single day. because we were quite good at doing other stuff that causes us stress. We don’t think about stopping doing those, so why don’t we deliberately build in a habitual behaviour of something that de-stresses us – simple.

Grant Leboff: One of the things you talk about in the book, which I found interesting just because it’s something that I’ve always done, although I’ve never thought about it in ‘stress terms’ is power napping, and the power of power napping. I often take a 20 minute power nap. But just to explain why that works and how that helps people.

David Hyner: There are well-documented reasons why physiologically, having a short power nap, rest, closed eye, what’s called autogenics, head to toe relaxations… can have massive and profound physiological, mental and emotional well-being impact on us. But the way it fundamentally helps and it was made famous of course in the 80s when politicians like Thatcher was famous for power napping. But we can do it anyplace, anytime, anywhere, if we practice. Now this is quite important because, like most techniques, they’re really easy to do. But if we don’t get it right first second or third time we’re guilty, sometimes, of giving in and not keep going 21 days again. So I’d advise people to say try it every single day. Close your eyes, find somewhere quiet where you can sit up straight or ideally, lie down. If, like me, you go to sleep really easily, set a phone to vibrate when the time’s up so you don’t miss work or something, or an important appointment. But relax yourself from head to toe. With every breath imagine yourself, not just mentally not just emotionally, but physiologically relaxing every muscle as you imagine from head to toe relaxing every muscle. And with practice sometimes, it starts off taking 40 minutes but with practice within two or three minutes three deep breaths you can relax completely from head to toe. It has remarkable benefits.

Grant Leboff: And one of the other things you talk about a lot is anchoring and using that as a technique. So some people will understand what that is and others won’t. Can you just explain what anchoring is and how that works?

David Hyner: Anchoring is a scientific word given to ‘stuff that works’. I’m into ‘stuff that works’. I’m not up on the labels but it’s the scientific name for choosing your mental, emotional and physical state. Now there are lots of scientists who talk about how to anchor a positive state -getting the zone, getting the flow, getting the ooooh! Come on, having it – kind of place. But actually the top achievers I’ve interviewed, they don’t know that’s what it’s called. They just do stuff ‘because it works’. And the first guy to teach this to me was four times world kickboxing champion Kash Gill and he said I do this because it changes me mentally, physically and emotionally. I go from being laid back to kickboxing world champion. I went… ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme!’ And he, basically, taught me how to stimulate the mind, the body, the senses, so that you can either; use it to relax or, give yourself a shot of energy if you are in an important meeting on need to step up, doing some physical exercise or an endurance event. It’s a it’s a remarkable technique.

There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.

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About David Hyner

Having interviewed over 250 top achievers to understand how they remain so effective and how they achieve their MASSIVE goals, David is an in demand speaker and trainer on the subject of “MASSIVE goals” and “Emotional resilience”. A multi-award winning speaker, presenting to between 10k-50k people globally each year, he shares his passion for helping us all to set and achieve our MASSIVE goals!